


The Night Visitor

by frackin_sweet



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Espionage, F/M, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort, Older Woman/Younger Man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 07:20:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frackin_sweet/pseuds/frackin_sweet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>M's holiday plans didn't include a voicemail breakup, or Bond showing up unannounced by way of the window.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Night Visitor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misspamela](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misspamela/gifts).



> Merry Christmas to you, misspamela!! I'd hoped to have this done sooner =/
> 
> Many thanks to ariadnes_string and linaerys for beta and suggestions!

_Paris, late December, 1995_

M knows the flat will be empty when she arrives, but the unheated darkness that reaches for her as she opens the door is still a shock. It almost turns her right back around to tell the driver to go back to Charles De Gaulle, but she knows he's already left to take his next fare.

She doesn't really want to stay at the flat. They had planned to spend Christmas together. It had all been so lovely: the excitement of a clandestine office romance, hiding it from their colleagues. That last part was even somewhat professionally challenging. If MI6 agents want to find out if their bosses are shagging, they bloody well have the means to do it.

And now. Now that she has received the promotion she worked so tirelessly to get, the promotion she _deserves_...well, she won’t have to continue hiding anything. 

It didn't help to think about it, that brief message from Oliver on her personal phone. _I won't be meeting you in Paris. I'm sorry._ She hadn't deleted it, but nor could she listen to it again. She was still reasoning her way through it, trying to come up with a _why_.

Maybe he threw her over for a younger woman. Maybe his precious manhood was threatened by a more powerful lover.

Maybe she’ll never know. 

She drops her trench over a chair and shakes the droplets of rain off her hair. She has to turn on the radiator, higher than she would have if she had company to help keep her warm. Perhaps a bath is in order, just to take the edge off the chill.

She curses herself for choosing an Agency safe house for her tryst. She thought it would be intimate and romantic, but now it just seems cramped and inconvenient. The taps take forever to produce hot water. The tile is mercilessly cold. The tub, at least, is deep enough to submerge her body to the neck. She gives a moment of consideration to the bottle of decadent bath oil she has brought in anticipation - just a moment, before binning it in favor of another bottle, the '77 Piper Heidsieck Cuvee. She can enjoy fine champagne just as well with the rough flannel and utilitarian soap.

As she raises a glass of the golden liquid, the light of the bath diffuses through its bubbles. When she catches a glimpse of her profile in the mirror, that same light is soft enough to blur the ravages of middle age. She doesn't deny them; they're there. She's 48. There are crows' feet and lines carved by the weight of service to the Crown – service that is heavier than the Crown itself, she'd wager. Her wet fingers find some of those lines and trace them dispassionately. 

"Happy Christmas, Oliver," she says, raising the glass to her own reflection. "You sodding bastard."

By the time the bathwater goes tepid she has had three...no...three? Yes, three glasses. She leaves puddles on the tile, and holds her dressing gown closed with one hand, bottle and glass in the other.

In spite of the hissing radiator, the sitting room is chillier than before, and she shivers. "Bloody drafty flat," she mutters. 

A noise makes her look up. The lights in Rue Bayen should be blue haloes through the window glass, but instead they glow brightly up at her. Through the open window.

Without hesitation, she drops to one knee beside the sofa where she left her case. One-handed, eyes scanning the gloom in the flat, she rummages for her Sig P229. _Damn, damn, damn!_ If her promotion were already official - it won't be until after the holiday - she would have a security detail and all of this would be moot.

If she's lucky, her intruder hasn't seen her leave the bath, and she’ll have the advantage. If not, she'll be forced to try to dispatch him - or her - via hand-to-hand combat, and while she's guardedly confident of her own abilities, she has no desire to exercise them in an unfastened dressing gown. 

"One gunshot wound today is enough for me," says a voice from the shadows. "Ma'am."

There is only one person who makes the word sound like that, like an afterthought. Like polite titles and professional etiquette aren't high on his list of priorities. 

"Bond?" She squints, her eyes struggling to adjust to the silhouette taking shape between the bookcases. "You're supposed to be in Istanbul."

"So was the target," he replies. "Things don't always work out as we’d like, though, do they?"

By the time M stands she has her dressing gown firmly secured, and it's a good thing because as Bond takes a step forward he stumbles a little and she puts out her hands to steady him. Her fingers skid across the wet surface of his shirt; rainwater is dripping off his hair, but this isn't rainwater. 

M puts down her gun and turns on the light. "Sit down," she orders. "Let me see what you've done to yourself this time." 

Bond obeys, and she feels a perverse satisfaction -- from watching him stain the upholstery red as well as from his obedience. He grimaces as he shrugs off his jacket, favoring his right side, until she clicks her tongue in frustration. "Let me do it." 

When the jacket is stripped out of the way, she is happy to see the damage is manageable. "It's a through and through." He submits silently to the gentle probing of her fingertips. "Needs to be sewn, though, I'm afraid." 

"I'm not going to hospital."

She looks askance at him. "I'm not suggesting you do." Before he can start protesting, she forestalls him with a gesture. "I can manage this. Stay there."

She feels his sharp gaze on her as she goes into the bathroom for her carry-on. Inside she has a small sewing kit, designed for travel emergencies very unlike this one, but it will suffice. She also tucks one more item into her pocket before gathering up towels and a small bottle of isopropyl alcohol. He's not going to like that, but it can't be helped. 

She removes his shirt so she can work properly. Being this close to him, cleaning the blood from the wound, she can see many old scars. They don't disfigure him, though. Her fingers itch to trace them, to travel over his surprisingly soft skin, to flatten her hand against the hard muscle of his chest.

Before the vivid images can settle in, she forces herself back to the task at hand. Bond’s torso tenses when she pours the alcohol, and he swears under his breath. She hears it, and tuts him. 

"Now, Bond. Wouldn't do to have you go down with a blood infection." She concentrates on threading a needle, rather than watching him breathe raggedly with pain.

"I need light," she says. "Can you...the lamp, please?" Holding it will give him something else to focus upon, as well.

As he holds it aloft in his left hand, it backlights him, silvering the blond stubble along his jaw and turning his irises translucent. 

"You were planning to sew whilst on holiday?" he asks. His grunt as she pokes the needle into his flesh detracts from the sarcasm, though.

"Maybe I was planning to have my clothes torn off, and wanted to be prepared," she replies lightly. 

He huffs out a surprised laugh. The expression on his face suddenly renders him much younger, closer to his actual age. How old _is_ Bond? Twenty-six? M is pretty sure that's right. He looks older, eyes dark-shadowed and bloodshot, his brow furrowed.

After that first prick of the needle he doesn't flinch again, but she can hear him breathe through each pull of the thread. "Just one more suture, that should do," she says, wanting him to know it's almost over. When it is, she knots off the thread and cleans the new rivulets blood off his skin. "Here." She places a folded flannel over the wound, and then places his hand over the flannel. 

He grimaces a little as he shifts around, trying to get comfortable. Rather than just watch him, M goes to the sideboard for another glass. She hesitates before pouring the champagne, doing some quick work with her fingers. Her back is to him, so hopefully he hasn't noticed.

She walks back and hands the glass to him. "Might as well share it with someone," she remarks, when he raises his eyebrows at her. "Cheers."

He lifts the glass. "Cheers, ma'am."

They drink in silence for a few moments, with Bond just staring at her, that hard-eyed stare he's far too young to have. Finally, she sighs. "What?"

He shrugs, frowns as it tugs his stitches. "Oliver Thewlis is a knob-end."

At the moment, she can’t really disagree. Still, she tries to play it off as nothing. "Who said anything about Director Thewlis?"

Bond just gives her a look. 

"Oh, all right," she replies waspishly. "It certainly doesn’t matter now. As you said, things don't always work out as we’d like.”

"Shall I kill him for you?" His offer is casual, as if he were suggesting he top off her glass.

She snorts. "I'd be one of the prime suspects, now, wouldn't I?"

His eyes glitter, and she sees the tips of his teeth as he smiles. "Not if they never find him."

M sighs a little. "That's not funny."

To her surprise, he agrees with her. "No. It's not." He shifts again, pain-tense body starting to uncoil. "You're head and shoulders better than he is."

She takes it as a compliment to her professional abilities. "I have to be, or I'd still be sitting at a secretary's desk outside an office."

"That's not what I meant." Bond looks at her, _really_ looks, and suddenly she can’t look away. "I mean you're too good for him." 

His pupils are dilated, banishing the blue around them to a narrow ring. "I wouldn't have left you here. By yourself." It feels like his gaze makes the edge of the dressing gown slip off her shoulder, even though his eyes don't leave her face. "With nobody to tear your clothes off."

Well. If wishes were horses...on a whim, she leans forward and presses her mouth to his. His lips are soft and dry, and he opens for her, letting her taste the heat of his mouth. It’s almost enough to make her forget his wound and let his thumb continue to stroke along her collarbone.

Almost. _Damn_. She curls her fingers around his, stopping their progress.

"You're here," she says softly. "That's all that's important, right now."

His hand flexes under hers. "You..." he just stares at her.

"What is it, Bond?"

He shakes his head slowly, and blinks. "You...what did you put in my drink?"

She dislodges his fingers gently. "Just a Zimovane."

"I don't have time --"

The moment is broken, and M tries not to regret the loss. She stands and shakes out the afghan draped across the back of the sofa. "You've already lost the target, Bond," she says briskly as she drapes the afghan over him. "We'll worry about the next step tomorrow, shall we?"

The expression of frustrated betrayal on his face slackens as he leans back against the cushions again. 

M reaches to turn out the light. It's dark when he speaks again. 

"Head and shoulders, ma'am," he says softly. 

"Thank you, James."

She watches him sleep for a bit. There will be times when she can't keep him safe. For now though, she can, and that's enough.

_\--end_


End file.
